2 DVD
16 EPISODE
Premise
The title refers to the burn notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When a spy is burned, they are wiped off the grid, without access to cash or influence. According to the narration during the opening credits, the burned spy has no prior work history, no money; in essence, no identity. The television series is a first-person narrative (including frequent voice-overs providing exposition) from the viewpoint of covert-operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan.
After fleeing a Nigerian operation blown apart by the sudden and unexplained non-cooperation of his U.S. contact, Westen finds himself in his hometown[2] of Miami, Florida, attended to by his ex-girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne, but abandoned by all his normal intelligence contacts, under continuous surveillance with his personal assets frozen. Extraordinary efforts to reach his U.S. government handler eventually yield only a grudging admission that someone powerful wants him "on ice" in Miami; if he leaves the city he will be hunted down and taken into custody, whereas by staying there he can remain relatively free. Consumed by the desire to find out why he has been burned, and by whom, Westen goes to work as an unlicensed private investigator/spy/soldier of fortune for anyone in town who can pay him any money in order to fund his personal investigation into his own situation as a blacklisted agent. Throughout the series Westen battles and outwits an array of mobsters, con artists, contract killers, professional thieves, drug traffickers, sex traffickers, deadbeat dads, arms dealers, kidnappers and war criminals. The series makes frequent use of jury rigging, with the characters improvising devices to do the job of more expensive, harder-to-obtain items.
During Season Two, Michael is introduced to Carla (Tricia Helfer), an agent of the company behind his burn notice. She assigns him various tasks to complete for her organization, which are revealed to be preparation for an assassination. The operation is sabotaged by a rogue agent of Carla's organization, and Michael is assigned to find out who it was. At the end of Season Two, Westen has an encounter with "the Management" who allow him out of their grasp, but revoke their "protection", meaning his activities will be given police attention, and enemies he made as a U.S. covert operative will be able to track him down. Putting the pieces together, Michael realizes that this shadowy company falsified records that painted him as both corrupt and unreliable, forcing the government to burn him. Furthermore, he was removed from all major databases, rendering him invisible to his enemies. By refusing the company's job offer, Michael remains burned but is now also back "on the grid", making it easier for Michael's enemies to find him, which puts him in a worse position than before. After a dramatic leap from a helicopter into the Atlantic Ocean, Westen finds himself arrested by Miami police who think he is an illegal immigrant after he washes up on South Beach.
Season Three picks up with Westen under surveillance by Detective Paxson (Moon Bloodgood), who has been tasked with monitoring his activities. Michael is able to secure the arrest of a major Miami criminal Paxson has long been targeting, and threatens to reveal the true circumstances of the arrest if Paxson does not stop bothering him. Paxson agrees to the deal. Michael is then contacted by a man named Tom Strickler (Ben Shenkman), who is very heavily connected and offers Michael the chance to regain his old job if he does some work for him, in exchange for performing morally questionable mercenary work. At first it seems to work, and Michael is able to confirm, through interactions with CIA agent Diego Garza, that movement is being made on his burn notice. In the midseason finale, however, Michael is forced to kill Strickler in order to save Fiona's life, an action which has unforeseen consequences.
Following the death of Strickler, Westen is contacted by an associate of his named Mason Gilroy (Chris Vance). Gilroy is also responsible for the murder of Garza, who was assigned as liaison for Westen's burn notice review. Strickler's death set off a chain of events that resulted in Garza's death as well as Gilroy's interest in Westen. Gilroy informs Michael that he wants Michael's help on an extremely lucrative operation. Believing Gilroy to be planning something dangerous, Michael plays along to uncover the plot with the aim of eventually foiling it. After performing several errands for Gilroy, Michael learns that the job involves a maximum security prisoner being rendered from Chile to Poland. Gilroy's job was to divert the plane, and its human cargo, but in the second to the last episode of the season, he is double-crossed and shot. Before dying, he informs Michael that the man behind the operation is named Simon (Garret Dillahunt). In the Season 3 finale Michael successfully captures Simon, with Management saying that Michael has a "big future." The season ends with Michael being taken to a unknown location.
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